Mastering the Art of Japanese Home Cooking

The revered Iron Chef shows how to make flavorful, exciting traditional Japanese meals at home in this beautiful cookbook that is sure to become a classic, featuring a carefully curated selection of fantastic recipes and more than 150 color photos.

Japanese cuisine has an intimidating reputation that has convinced most home cooks that its beloved preparations are best left to the experts. But legendary chef Masaharu Morimoto, owner of the wildly popular Morimoto restaurants, is here to change that. InMastering the Art of Japanese Home Cooking, he introduces readers to the healthy, flavorful, surprisingly simple dishes favored by Japanese home cooks.

Chef Morimoto reveals the magic of authentic Japanese food—the way that building a pantry of half a dozen easily accessible ingredients allows home cooks access to hundreds of delicious recipes, empowering them to adapt and create their own inventions. From revelatory renditions of classics like miso soup, nabeyaki udon, and chicken teriyaki to little known but unbelievably delicious dishes like fish simmered with sake and soy sauce,Mastering the Art of Japanese Home Cookingbrings home cooks closer to the authentic experience of Japanese cuisine than ever before.

And, of course, the famously irreverent chef also offers playful riffs on classics, reimagining tuna-and-rice bowls in the style of Hawaiian poke, substituting dashi-marinated kale for spinach in oshitashi, and upgrading the classic rice seasoning furikake with toasted shrimp shells and potato chips. Whatever the recipe, Chef Morimoto reveals the little details—the right ratios of ingredients in sauces, the proper order for adding seasonings—that make all the difference in creating truly memorable meals that merge simplicity with exquisite flavor and visual impact.

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Contents
INTRODUCTION
The Japanese Meal: Turning the recipes in this book into dinner
DASHI: THE EASY, ESSENTIAL JAPANESE STOCK
Dashi: Dried fish and kelp stock
Kombu Dashi: Kelp stock
GOHAN: RICE
Hakumai: Perfect white rice
Onigiri: Rice balls
Yaki Onigiri: Grilled rice balls
Omuraisu: Omelet with ketchup-fried rice
Takikomi Gohan: Dashi-simmered rice with vegetables
Chahan: Japanese-style fried rice
Su Meshi: Sushi rice
Temaki: Hand rolls
Spicy Tuna Temaki
Ume-Shiso Temaki
Vegetable Temaki
California Temaki
Battera: Pressed mackerel sushi
Oyako Don: Chicken and egg rice bowl
Katsu Don: Pork cutlet and egg rice bowl
Suteki Don: Steak rice bowls with spicy teriyaki sauce
Tekka Don No Poke: Hawaiian poke-style tuna rice bowl
SUPU: SOUPS
Miso Shiru: Miso soup with tofu
Asari No Miso Shiru: Miso soup with clams
Tonjiru: Hearty miso soup with pork and vegetables
Tamago Supu: Japanese egg drop soup
Dango Jiru: Japanese-style chicken and dumpling soup
Dobin Mushi: Aromatic “tea pot” soup with mushrooms, fish, and shrimp
YAKU: TO GRILL, BROIL, AND SEAR
A Yakitori Party: Grilled chicken and vegetable skewers
Tsukune No Teriyaki: Chicken meatballs with teriyaki sauce
Sake Shioyaki: Salt-grilled salmon
Sakana No Misoyaki: Grilled miso-marinated fish
Nasu No Misoyaki: Eggplant with chicken and miso sauce
Tori No Teriyaki: Chicken teriyaki
Gyoza: Pork and cabbage dumplings
Tamagoyaki: Japanese Omelet
Buta No Shogayaki: Pork belly with ginger and onions
MUSU: TO STEAM
Sakana No Sakamushi: Fish steamed in kombu with spicy soy sauce
Shumai: Japanese-style shrimp dumplings
Chawanmushi: Egg custard with shrimp, chicken, and fish
NIRU: TO SIMMER
Saba No Misoni: Mackerel simmered with miso
Nitsuke: Fish simmered with sake, soy sauce, and sugar
Hambagu: Japanese-style hamburger with tangy sauce
Buta No Kakuni: Slow-cooked pork belly with beer-teriyaki glaze
Chikuzenni: Chicken simmered with lotus root and bamboo shoot
Nikujaga: Japanese-style beef stew
Hijiki: Sweet simmered hijiki seaweed
Karei Raisu: Japanese-style curry
Oden: Japanese-style hot pot
ITAME RU: TO STIR-FRY
Kinpira: Stir-fried parsnip and carrot
Yasai Itame: Stir-fried vegetables
Kaisen Yaki Udon: Stir-fried udon noodles with seafood
Yakisoba: Stir-fried noodles with pork, cabbage, and ginger
MEN: NOODLES
Kinoko Zaru Soba: Chilled soba noodles with mushrooms
Kamo Nanban Soba: Soba noodle soup with duck and spring vegetables
Homemade Udon Noodles
Zaru Udon: Chilled udon noodles with scallions and ginger
Nabeyaki Udon: “Clay pot” udon noodle soup
Supagetti No Teriyaki: Chicken teriyaki spaghetti
AGERU: TO FRY
Yasai Tempura: Vegetable tempura
Kaki Age: Shrimp and vegetable fritters
Kara Age: Japanese-style fried chicken with scallion sauce
Tonkatsu: Japanese-style fried pork cutlet
Menchi Katsu: Crispy fried beef patties
Kabocha Korokke: Squash croquettes
AE RU: TO DRESS
Ingen No Goma Ae: Green beans with sesame dressing
Karashi Ae: Brussels sprouts, shrimp, and mushrooms with Japanese mustard dressing
Shira Ae: Spinach, carrot, and shiitake with tofu dressing
Sumiso Ae: Squid and scallions with miso-vinegar dressing
TSUKERU: TO PICKLE
Tataki Kyuri: Smashed cucumber pickles
Shiozuke: Salt pickles
Misozuke: Miso pickles
Nukazuke: Rice bran pickles
Acknowledgments
Ingredient Glossary
Sources
Index
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
Long before I was an Iron Chef with a restaurant empire of my own, I was the young executive chef at Nobu restaurant in New York City. Nobu Matsuhisa, the owner and chef, served boundary-crossing Japanese food inspired by his time in Peru. He dazzled American diners with dishes that fused exotic-seeming elements of Japanese food (raw fish, mysterious-sounding ingredients like uni and yuzu ) with the bright flavors of Latin America—chiles, lime, and cilantro.
At the time, I was struck by the fact that perhaps his most celebrated dish, the one that earned breathless reviews from the New York Times and cost diners $25 a plate, was miso-marinated black cod. As a boy, I’d gobbled this dish many times at the table in my family’s little house in Hiroshima prefecture. My grandmother might have used a more modest fish than rich, silky black cod and left out the bright pink pickled ginger shoot and drizzle of sauce that garnished the plate at Nobu. Otherwise, hers was essentially identical.
Because Americans were unfamiliar with the dish and because it shared a menu with all that creative fusion food, the staple of Japanese home cooking seemed like a brilliant chef’s invention. Nobu-san’s real stroke of brilliance was simply realizing how much Americans would love the dish. The praise it inspired revealed how thrilling even the simplest Japanese home cooking could be.
The years since then have been good ones for Japanese cuisine in America. We’ve seen sushi go from exotic rarity to supermarket staple. We’ve seen tempura become a household term. We’ve witnessed the rise of ramen and soba and yakitori. The enthusiastic embrace of Japanese food was no surprise to those of us who grew up relishing its lightness and healthfulness, its simplicity and its umami, that hard-to-describe fifth flavor that is sometimes translated as “mouth-fillingly delicious.”
No question: Americans adore Japanese food. But though other cuisines—Mexican or Italian or French—are locally beloved, cooks here don’t even attempt to make Japanese food at home. Why not? I have a theory: lore and mystique plague the cuisine. Americans have heard again and again that the best sushi chefs train for years before they’re allowed to even touch rice or fish. They’ve heard tales of kaiseki, the elaborate parade of tiny dishes made from ingredients that might be in season for mere weeks. They’ve heard about the Japanese penchant for specialization: restaurants are devoted to one ingredient (like eel) or dish (like tempura), and master practitioners dedicate their lives to the craft. The takeaway: this cuisine is best left to experts. No wonder home cooks are afraid to try it!
But we Japanese chefs know a secret. The flavors that our customers adore aren’t so hard to create. They exist in the incredible, underexplored world of Japanese home cooking.
It’s true that I spent many years learning the intricacies of fish and rice making so my sushi would satisfy connoisseurs spending $200 on dinner. Home cooks across Japan, however, make a different kind of delicious sushi. They fold a mixture of vinegar, sugar, and salt into cooked short-grain rice and set the result on the table alongside nori (easy-to-find sheets of dried seaweed) and a modest array of vegetables or fish. The family digs in, everyone spreading the rice onto the nori, adding the filling, and rolling the package into a cylinder by hand. This is temaki zushi, or hand rolls. They require no special skills or equipment to make. Yet because you make them yourself, the nori stays crisp, the rice stays warm, and gummy, soggy take-out sushi rolls become a distant memory.
This is true for so many exalted dishes: they might take years of training to produce at the highest level at the most celebrated restaurants, but they require only a little know-how to become tasty, satisfying dinners at home.
The finest soba noodles, for instance, are handmade from freshly milled and meticulously polished buckwheat. Yet in Japanese homes across the globe, store-bought dried noodles make a delightful centerpiece for a simple meal served with grated radish and dipping sauce. You’ll pay dearly for featherweight fried maitake mushrooms and lotus root at the finest tempura restaurants in Tokyo, where chefs create edible art with bubbling oil. Yet once you’ve mastered a few simple techniques, you’ll impress your friends with vegetables encased in impossibly light, greaseless crunch. The now-famous black cod with miso, too, has its fussed-over versions. Yet all my grandmother did to make misoyaki was slather a four-ingredient marinade onto fish and broil it. Hers is still my favorite.
Ironically, it took me leaving home to experience real home cooking. I loved my mother, but she was not a good cook. She grew up wealthy, surrounded by housekeepers who cooked and cleaned for her. She barely had to put her clothes on herself. After World War II, her family lost everything. By the time she married my father and had me, she was too busy working to catch up on all the cooking experience she had missed.
The only weapon in her arsenal was soy sauce. In most households at the time, mothers used dashi, the simple stock made from dried fish and kelp that is the backbone of so many Japanese dishes. My mother? She tried to mimic its flavor with soy sauce mixed with water. Instead of the classic tempura sauce (a mixture of dashi, soy sauce, and sweet rice wine), she served the deep-fried vegetables with a bowl of soy sauce. Instead of the perfectly calibrated salty-sweet dipping sauce for cold soba noodles, she served a bowl of—you guessed it—soy sauce!
As a young, growing Morimoto, I didn’t know any better. I was concerned only with shoveling in as much food as I could in one sitting. And perhaps because of my mother’s soy sauce habit, I preferred rice to anything else. By the time I was a teenager, my dinner was a small piece of grilled fish with soy sauce and ten bowls of rice. (Keep in mind that Japanese rice bowls are small, but also that mine were always piled high!) As long as I was full, I was happy.
I was a hungry boy, because I was training every day to become a baseball player. Baseball was my first love. I was a catcher. I dreamed of being drafted by my hometown team, the Hiroshima Carps. After that, who knows? Maybe I’d play for the Yankees—or at least the Mets. I had a real chance to play professionally in Japan until I injured my shoulder and understood that I could never make it. Then my career path was clear, because I had only one other passion: sushi.
My family didn’t have much money. My father was a drinker, and my home life was difficult. But a couple of times a year, all of us—my father, mother, sister, and I—would get dressed up and go out for sushi. We’d sit at the counter and I would stare at the sushi chefs’ practiced hands as they sliced fish and swiftly formed each piece, mesmerized as if I were at a magic show. They looked very, very cool. When I missed out on my first dream, becoming one of these men, who wore clean white jackets and made families happy, came to be my new one.
So, at age eighteen, I began washing dishes at Ichiban Zushi, a restaurant in Hiroshima run by a man named Ikuo Oyama. He saw how hungry I was to learn, and I soon became his apprentice, living in a room above the restaurant and working long hours. My job began when I opened my eyes at 5 a.m. and ended when I closed them at 2 a.m.
Ichiban served sushi and made a range of food sold at a supermarket next door. Oyama-san would ultimately teach me to slice fish in the artful sushi style. But first, I had to learn to cook the supermarket food and the food that Oyama-san and his family ate for dinner—that is, many staples of Japanese home cooking.
Oyama-san’s wife taught me to cook simple food the old way, how to make kimpira (sweet-salty simmered root vegetables), nikujaga (soy sauce and sake–laced beef stew), and korokke (deep-fried potato croquettes). I also learned for the first time that tempura had its own umami-packed sauce. It was under her tutelage that I made my first dashi. Every morning, she and her daughter-in-law made the stock from scratch, steeping kombu in a pot of barely bubbling water before adding handfuls of the feathery katsuobushi flakes. She strained the liquid and used it in everything from miso soup to simmered fish to omelets. Though making the stock took only fifteen minutes, I didn’t yet understand why they put in the effort. After all, my mother’s stand-in of soy sauce mixed with water took mere seconds.
We cooked in a small room with a stainless steel counter and a few countertop burners—a far cry from the vast, gleaming kitchens of my restaurants today. I sat with the family and we all ate together. For the first time, I saw people savoring food. They talked about each dish, complimenting the flavor of a particular ingredient or noting that a dish was too salty or sweet. As they discussed the finer points of tempura and tonkatsu, I looked at my empty bowl and realized that I’d gulped down my food without really tasting it. From then on, I decided that learning to taste food was just as important as cooking. I began to understand why they made their own pickles—hers tasted better and cost less than those sold at the market. I got why she took the time to make the painstaking multilayered omelet called tamagoyaki —because its texture was like nothing else. And I finally realized why they made dashi —the stock that transforms something as simple as boiled spinach into the shockingly flavorful, umami-filled dish called ohitashi .
Soon I started making all the food sold in the supermarket, plus dinner for the family. This was a lot of work. In the little time I had between the chopping and simmering and frying, I tried to make the food as tasty as I could. My struggle was a glimpse into what home cooks—who in Japan at the time were mostly women—toiled to accomplish every day. This kind of cooking was not an art; it was a job. And it gave rise to dishes that are both delicious and easy to make.
This book is devoted to these simple and spectacular examples of Japanese home cooking. It’s a catalog of ideas from Japanese grandmothers, a highlight reel that includes my favorite dishes to eat at home. It’s also my attempt to hold on to some of the old ways, the ingredients and techniques that make the most delicious food. As time and technology march forward, home cooking in Japan has changed. Oyama-san’s wife has since passed away. Oyama-san recently turned ninety years old. Young people are gulping, just as I used to. Quality cooking has lost out to convenience and speed. No longer does every house have a crock of rice bran pickles fermenting. The most popular food to eat at Christmastime is a bucket of fried chicken from KFC.
Not all progress is bad, of course. Today when you turn on the faucet, out comes water; when you turn on the stove, out come flames. When I was born, on the other hand, my family got water from a well and lit a fire when we wanted to cook. In the same way, I’m happy that home cooks in modern Japan and America can buy katsuobushi preshaved at the store. Just a few decades ago, you’d have to buy blocks of the dried, smoked, and fermented fish and shave them yourself on a kezuriki, a wooden device similar to a carpenter’s plane. Yet we have gone too far. Nowadays many home cooks (and even many restaurants) use packaged, powdered dashi, a product made mainly of salt, sugar, and MSG. This should not be. Not only does real dashi put powdered imitators to shame—it requires just two ingredients. Instead of the hours of simmering that French stock requires, all dashi takes is a brief steeping. Why take the shortcut when the long way isn’t all that long?
The good news is that cooking real Japanese food in America has never been easier. Unlike Thai or Vietnamese foods, which rely on hard-to-find fresh ingredients (Thai chiles, lemongrass, anise-scented sweet basil), Japanese home cooking owes its characteristic flavors to a half-dozen pantry ingredients. You can now find these staples on supermarket shelves from Ann Arbor to Austin, from Seattle to Savannah, and they last indefinitely in the fridge or cupboard. This is the magic of Japanese food. You build a pantry, combine a few ingredients in the right ratios, and you’re ready to cook hundreds of dishes, including (but not limited to) the recipes in this book.
It’s out of hope that I named this book after Julia Child’s groundbreaking Mastering the Art of French Cooking . Her book changed the way Americans thought about French food, igniting both passion for an unfamiliar cuisine and, perhaps more important, starting people down the path to understanding. In this book, I hope to do the same for Japanese home cooking.
Of course, this book, like Mrs. Child’s, does not and could not include every dish in the Japanese grandmother’s repertoire. If it did, the book might leave you feeling overwhelmed instead of inspired. I decided to limit the recipes to my true favorites, the ones I would whip up for you and your family in your kitchen if I could.
My goal is to introduce you to dishes that you’ve probably never tried but that I know you will adore. I also want to reacquaint you with dishes (tempura!) and sauces (teriyaki!) that have been misrepresented in bad restaurants and supermarket bottles. I want you to become a cheerleader for Japanese home cooking, and introduce your family and friends to its wonders. And so I’ve gone into the kitchen to make these dishes for the first time in years—my wife, Keiko, is the home cook in the Morimoto family—tinkering with them to reflect American seasonal ingredients and adding a few twists here and there. My grandmother’s generation certainly did not use kale in their ohitashi and would have screamed in horror to see aioli served alongside oden . But I am Morimoto-san, after all.
THE JAPANESE MEAL
Turning the recipes in this book into dinner
There are no laws about eating Japanese food. Even though I would not suggest, for instance, mixing wasabi and soy sauce for your sushi or spearing soba noodles with a fork and not chopsticks, you should do what you like best. That’s the fun of cooking at home: your house, your rules!
Yet before you start cooking, let me tell you about how I would eat the food in this book. In other words, let me tell you about how a Japanese person makes different dishes into a meal at home. In general, and whether we realize it or not, Japanese people often follow the principles of ichiju sansai, which basically translates to “one soup and three dishes.” The soup and these three dishes—usually some form of rice, protein, and vegetable—are eaten at the same time, not in courses. Each particular combination takes balance into account—balance of flavors, textures, and richness.
I hope this talk of principles and balance doesn’t seem intimidating, like some art you must master, because it’s not! Americans, too, achieve balance in their food whenever they serve a salad with a steak or choose not to serve a baked potato with a bowl of pasta. The same logic applies to Japanese food, though instead of a main dish there are often several smaller dishes. Take as an example the typical Japanese breakfast: there is a bowl of miso soup, a bowl of plain rice, a piece of simply prepared fish, and pickled vegetables. The soup is nourishing and warm. The rice is starchy, slightly sweet, but mostly pleasantly bland. The fish is rich and filling. The pickles are crunchy, intensely flavored, and light. A bite of one dish makes you crave a bite of the others. You eat and feel satisfied, not stuffed.
These general categories—soup, starch, protein, vegetable—can be mixed and matched to your liking. Instead of miso soup, you could whip up Japanese egg drop soup. Instead of fish, perhaps you’d like chicken teriyaki or tamagoyaki (the Japanese omelet). Instead of plain rice, you might choose onigiri (rice balls) or takikomi gohan (rice cooked in dashi with vegetables). Instead of pickles, you might make green beans with sesame dressing or sweet-salty simmered hijiki, a dark, nutritious sea vegetable. Japanese cooks instinctively make meals from dishes made with different cooking methods—a fried dish might share the table with a simmered dish, a pickled one, and a dressed one. That’s one reason I divided the book’s recipes into chapters based on cooking method and starch type. Take one recipe from each of three or four chapters and there’s your balanced meal.
Meals can certainly be more elaborate or less. Instead of three dishes, you could add a few extra—maybe ohitashi (dashi-marinated kale) and gyoza (pork and cabbage dumplings). Instead of separate protein and vegetable dishes, you could serve one, like chikuzenni, that contains both. And while you don’t need rice to make a meal, I can’t imagine one without it. In fact, much of the food in the Japanese repertoire only makes sense when you imagine a bowl of rice beside it. Dishes that might seem too intensely flavored on their own—eggplant doused in a rich, salty miso sauce, for example, or fish simmered with soy, sake, and sugar—are perfect with the steaming, mild grains to soak up all that deliciousness.
Of course, I don’t expect any home cook to prepare four separate recipes a night. Not even Grandma does that! Instead she always has a few dishes in the fridge—typically simple foods that are boldly seasoned and taste just as good, if not better, a few days after they’re made. This is true of nikujaga (Japanese beef stew), kinpira (stir-fried parsnip and carrot), hijiki, pickles, and many more dishes. And it means that you can make just one new dish on a night and still serve a complete, impressive Japanese dinner.
And yes, there are many exceptions to the ichiju sansai meal. Just as I sometimes grab a burger for lunch, I also fill my belly with the one-dish meal called donburi —a bowl of rice topped with chicken and egg, beef, or raw tuna—or slurp down a plate of chilled udon noodles with dipping sauce. Sure, my wife might urge me to eat some vegetables alongside, but I admit I don’t always. Use common sense: if your protein is kakuni (simmered pork belly), you might not want to pair it with tonkatsu (deep-fried pork cutlet). The key word is might —because remember, your house, your rules.
DASHI
The easy, essential Japanese stock
Meet Japanese cuisine’s secret weapon: dashi. Whenever a simple Japanese dish—a bowl of soup, a small pile of boiled spinach, a jumble of egg and chicken over rice—shocks you with its depth of flavor, dashi is to thank.
Similar to the role chicken and veal stocks play in Western cuisines, dashi provides the backbone of flavor that helps other ingredients stand tall. Yet while meat stock is thick and intense, a punch to the mouth, dashi is light and clean in body and flavor, blowing a subtle ocean breeze into everything it touches. Dashi also makes classic French stock seem like brain surgery. Instead of hours of simmering, dashi requires just fifteen minutes of steeping. Instead of bones, vegetables, and herbs, dashi requires just two ingredients. Despite this, I’m sad to say that many cooks in Japan nowadays no longer make dashi, relying instead on a powdered product, the Japanese equivalent of chicken bouillon. I’m begging you—don’t make this mistake.
Dashi begins with kombu, a type of kelp harvested from the cold waters around Hokkaido, Japan’s northern island, that’s sun-dried, cut, and sold in blackish-green ribbons. The most elemental version of dashi is kombu steeped in water. That’s it. Frequently, however, kombu joins forces with katsuobushi, skipjack tuna or bonito that has been dried, smoked, and often fermented. In the old days, all cooks bought the fish in blocks that resembled petrified wood and shaved them by hand into fine, feather-like flakes. (Today, most buy preshaved katsuobushi, one modern convenience I can get behind.) Kombu contributes a briny, green flavor, while katsuobushi adds a subtle sweetness and smokiness. And both ingredients add umami. In case you’re not familiar, umami is a concept coined by a Japanese scientist who in the early 1900s did research in an attempt to explain why dashi tastes so good. It turns out that kombu and katsuobushi contain a substance called glutamic acid—so do other umami-giving ingredients, from tomatoes and Parmesan to mushrooms and miso—that produces a wonderful sensation best translated as “Wow, that’s delicious!” In the past decade, umami has been recognized not just as a result of combining the four basic tastes that kids learn about in science class—sweet, sour, bitter, and salty—but as a taste of its own. Science aside, all you need to know is that whatever umami-rich dashi touches tastes even more packed with flavor than it did before.
THE KEYS TO MAKING DASHI AT HOME
+ Good dashi is about balance—the sea-sweetness and smokiness of the katsuobushi, the subtle brininess of the kombu—so measure the ingredients as precisely as possible.
+ Be vigilant: dashi takes very little time and effort, but do remember to keep an eye on the water to make sure it never fully simmers, let alone boils. This will give your dashi a sour or bitter flavor.
+ When you strain the stock during the final step of dashi making, resist the temptation to wring the katsuobushi to extract every last bit of liquid. A light press with a wooden spoon is sufficient—squeeze and you’ll end up with sour dashi.
Like many Japanese ingredients, katsuobushi and kombu are fetishized by the finest chefs, who pay dearly for the highest grades. And though making dashi is essentially uncomplicated, master practitioners obsess over the technique. At home, however, making dashi could not be less complicated. Its two ingredients are now widely available—at Japanese markets and online, yes, but also at many health-food stores and American supermarkets. The process is straightforward and the results are immediately rewarding. Once you have it in your arsenal, you’re ready to make ohitashi , vegetables like spinach or kale marinated in seasoned dashi. You’re minutes away from the best miso soup you’ve ever tasted. You can turn ingredients as plain as egg , chicken, and rice into the sublime meal-in-a-bowl known as oyako don . In other words, for anyone eager to start on the recipes in this book, making dashi should be your first order of business. Your cooking will never be the same.
DASHI
DRIED FISH AND KELP STOCK
Japan’s legendary super-broth is the key to simple home cooking that has deep, satisfying flavor. It requires just fifteen minutes and two ingredients that last virtually forever in your pantry and are easier than ever to find. I can’t think of a better use of your time than making it right away!
MAKES ABOUT 7 CUPS
Special Equipment
Cheesecloth
½ ounce kombu (dried kelp; an approximately 5 by 6-inch
piece)
8 cups water, preferably filtered or spring water
1½ ounces bonito flakes (katsuobushi ), about 3 cups lightly packed
Briefly and gently wipe the kombu with a damp towel to remove any dirt or grit, but do not scrub off the white stuff.
Combine the water and kombu in a medium pot, set over medium heat, and heat uncovered just until you see small bubbles break the surface of the water, 10 to 12 minutes. Take the pot off the heat.
Use tongs to remove and discard the kombu. Add the bonito flakes to the pot and stir gently to distribute the flakes throughout the liquid. Let the flakes steep for about 1 minute and use a spoon to skim off any white froth from the surface of the liquid. Let the flakes steep for 2 minutes more.
Line a sieve or strainer with cheesecloth or sturdy paper towels, set the sieve over a large container, and pour in the dashi. Very gently press the flakes and discard them.
If you’re not using the dashi right away, let it cool to room temperature and store it in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to 4 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
OHITASHI
Dashi-marinated kale
Dashi is incredibly versatile—like many stocks, it serves as the base for countless soups and adds richness and depth to stews, simmered dishes, sauces, and more. But perhaps its simplest use is as a sort of marinade for vegetables for a dish called ohitashi. Once they’re briefly boiled and shocked in icy water, so many vegetables—from seasonal ones like asparagus and okra to the classic spinach—benefit from a bath in seasoned dashi. The technique makes the vegetable taste richer and even more like itself. Here, I use the beloved American green kale, which has a bolder flavor than spinach and makes particularly delicious, if untraditional, ohitashi.
SERVES 4
Kosher salt
One ½-pound bunch kale, such as curly, Russian, or Tuscan, thick bottom stems trimmed and discarded
1½ cups Dashi (dried fish and kelp stock) or Kombu Dashi (kelp stock)
1 teaspoon usukuchi (Japanese light-colored soy sauce)
1 teaspoon mirin (sweet rice wine) 1 heaping tablespoon bonito flakes (katsuobushi )
Bring a medium pot of water to a boil and add enough salt (about 1 tablespoon) so it tastes lightly salty. Prepare a medium mixing bowl full of icy water.
Bundle the kale so the stem ends are lined up. Grab the kale bundle by the leaves and submerge about 2 inches of the stems in the water. Wait 30 seconds, then add the kale to the water and stir well. Cook until the kale is fully tender but still retains some texture, 3 to 4 minutes. Use tongs to transfer the kale to the icy water, stir well, and let it fully cool. Remove the kale and firmly squeeze it to remove as much water as you can.
Combine the dashi, soy sauce, mirin, and 1 teaspoon salt in a small saucepan, set it over medium heat, and cook, stirring, just until the salt fully dissolves. Let the dashi mixture cool and pour it in a medium mixing bowl. Add the kale, breaking up the clumps, stir, and cover the bowl. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 24 hours, the longer the better.
When you’re ready to eat, take the kale out of the fridge and wait about 5 minutes, so it’s cool but no longer cold. Gently squeeze the kale back into the bowl, reserving the liquid. Line up the kale leaves on a cutting board and gather them into a long, tight bundle about 1½ inches high and 8 inches long. Cut it crosswise into 2-inch pieces and arrange them on a small plate. Spoon on about 3 tablespoons of the reserved liquid or more to taste. Rub the bonito flakes between dry hands to make them finer, sprinkle on top, and serve.
KOMBU DASHI
KELP STOCK
You’d think that classic dashi couldn’t be simpler. After all, it’s made from water and two ingredients. Yet this version, a staple of Japan’s rich tradition of vegetarian cooking, manages to cut the number of ingredients in half. Kombu (dried kelp) alone infuses water with its quietly briny flavor to produce liquid umami. The result is different from the slightly sweeter, smokier dashi made with the shavings of dried fish called katsuobushi, but it’s a great alternative, whether you’re making vegetarian food or you’re low on katsuobushi.
MAKES ABOUT 7½ CUPS
2 ounces kombu (dried kelp; four approximately 5 by 6-inch pieces)
8 cups water, preferably filtered or spring water
Briefly and gently wipe the kombu with a damp towel to remove any dirt or grit, but do not scrub off the white stuff.
Combine the water and kombu in a medium pot, set over medium heat, and heat uncovered just until you see small bubbles break the surface of the water, 10 to 12 minutes. Take the pot off the heat. Use tongs to remove the kombu. If there are kombu particles in your broth, set a fine-mesh sieve over a container and strain the dashi.
If you’re not using the dashi right away, let it cool to room temperature and store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
MORIMOTO MAGIC TRICK: YOU CAN MAKE KOMBU DASHI WITHOUT TURNING ON YOUR STOVE! COMBINE THE KOMBU AND WATER IN A LARGE CONTAINER, COVER TIGHTLY, AND KEEP IN THE FRIDGE FOR 12 HOURS. REMOVE THE KOMBU AND POOF—DASHI!
GOHAN
Rice
When I started working in restaurants, I was up to my elbows in rice—literally. At Ichiban in Hiroshima, I spent four years learning how to properly cook rice before my boss, Chef Ikuo Oyama, let me pick up a knife.
Each morning at Ichiban, I’d plunge my hands into a bowl of raw short-grain rice so deep that, yes, the grains nearly reached my elbows! With the bowl under running water, I’d swish the rice around, then drain the water, then swish and drain again and again until the water was no longer cloudy from the rice’s starch. Once it was properly washed, I’d combine the rice with fresh water in a huge pot. The amount of water always varied, depending on the batch of dry rice, the weather, and other factors. Over time, Oyama-san taught me how to tell, simply by feeling the grains, how much to adjust the amount of water. Since this was rice for sushi, I transferred the cooked rice to a shallow wooden tub called hangiri and poured on a mixture of vinegar, sugar, and salt, stirring and folding with a wooden paddle. I folded very, very gently, for if I had smashed any of those fussed-over grains, Oyama-san would not have been happy.
At first, I didn’t understand why I had to make rice, why I wasn’t allowed to cut fish right away. As a boy, I idolized the sushi chefs working quietly and surely behind the counter at the restaurant my family visited on special occasions. So by the time I got to Ichiban, I was eager to put on a crisp white uniform and get down to the real business of sushi making. Yet the key to sushi, as Oyama-san explained, is not the fish or the forming, but the rice. “How can this be?” you might wonder. “It’s just rice.” Well, my friends, in Japan rice is so much more than just rice.
That the word gohan means both “rice” and “meal” should give you an idea of just how important the grains are in Japan. For many Japanese people, even in modern Japan where noodles and bread abound, a meal without rice is almost unthinkable. A typical family might sit down for breakfast or dinner in front of a few dishes to share—maybe simmered fish, soup, and pickles. Everyone, however, has his own bowl of rice, the heart of the meal. As a boy in a poor family, I sometimes had entire meals of rice. I remember one night, my mother brought home a special treat—octopus. There was enough for each of us to have just one slice. Still, I feasted that night—my octopus slice, soy sauce, and bowl after bowl after bowl of rice.
Much of Japanese food is designed to be eaten alongside rice. The intensely salty-sweet flavor of fish marinated in miso, for instance, and pickles are balanced by the beautifully bland grains. Everything is essentially a condiment for the rice. This is especially true with sushi. Oyama-san taught me that while the seafood, with its striking array of colors, seems like the main event, it was really just an accessory for the rice, similar to soy sauce and wasabi. I didn’t quite believe him until I ate the result of his careful cooking. The grains of his sushi rice were so perfectly cooked—tender and springy, slick and sticky—that it seemed as if he had prepared each one separately.
This was how he showed his respect for rice. He elevated it from humble grain to something special, from simple sustenance to what tasted like a luxury. Today, at my restaurants, I try to continue this tradition. I even have a mill so I can polish brown rice into perfect pearly white grains to my exact, fussy specifications. (I figure if my customers pay more than $100 for sushi, then it had better be perfect.)
Home-cooked rice is a different animal. Unlike Oyama-san, your dinner guests will not point out the slightest imperfection. So you don’t need your own mill, or years of practice—just a mother, grandmother, or Morimoto to teach you. In this chapter I take your hand and guide you through making perfect white rice—which takes barely more effort than cooking Uncle Ben’s and will serve as the backbone for nearly every dish in this book. I’ll show you how to make sticky-amazing sushi rice and then turn it into temaki rolls. And I’ll introduce you to carefully mounded rice balls stuffed with salmon or plum; fried rice with eggs and vegetables and anything else in the fridge; and the transcendently delicious, deceptively simple chicken-and-egg dish called oyako don. Once you cook through the recipes in this chapter and see how satisfying the unassuming grain can be, you might never eat a meal without rice again.
BUY A RICE COOKER
You can absolutely make rice in a pot. But there’s a reason that virtually everyone in Japan over the age of two owns an electric rice cooker, the single greatest gift Japan has given to the world, Nintendo aside. Cooking rice in a pot requires a little vigilance—you must make sure the water is always simmering very gently—while a rice cooker lets you press a button and go watch baseball on TV. Not only that, the cooker will keep your rice warm until you’re ready to eat it, without the grains turning to mush. And unless you’re a true expert, using a pot won’t give you as predictably perfect grains as a cooker.
Ah, but which rice cooker is best? The answer depends on you. There are rice cookers that cost hundreds of dollars and seem to have hundreds of buttons and settings. Not even I have one of these! Then there are inexpensive cookers with just one button: you add rice and water, press cook, and that’s it. I prefer the middle ground. Look for a cooker with features that you think you’ll actually use—for example, the brown rice setting is magic for me and my wife, Keiko, because it makes the best brown rice you’ve ever tasted. And don’t pay for features you won’t use—a congee setting is only a blessing for big fans of rice porridge. Finally, make sure the cooking capacity meets your needs as well. If you love to cook for friends, don’t buy a rice cooker that can make only four cups of cooked rice.
HAKUMAI
PERFECT WHITE RICE
Today, everyone wants quicker, faster, sooner. Yet just because you can buy instant rice and microwavable rice doesn’t mean you should. One bite of my perfect white rice will show you why. Sure, you must take the extra step of rinsing the uncooked grains under water to wash away excess starch, but this leads to cooked rice with perfectly plump, springy grains that are blessedly free of mush and clumps. Please don’t cheat and buy cheaper long-grain rice: short-grain rice—often labeled “sushi rice”—is essential, even though you’re not necessarily making sushi. (If you are, flip to Su Meshi .) The recipe below yields 6 cups of cooked rice, perfect for dinner for four people or one Morimoto. Adjusting the amount, though, is simple: just remember, always cook the rinsed rice with the same volume of water (for instance, 3 cups of rice requires 3 cups of water) .
MAKES 6 CUPS
2¼ cups short-grain white rice (“sushi rice”)
Put the rice in a large-mesh strainer set inside a large mixing bowl and add enough water to cover the rice. Use your hands to stir and agitate the rice to release the starch from the exterior of the grains. Empty the water, fill the bowl again, and repeat the process until the fresh water no longer becomes cloudy when you stir the rice.
Drain the rice in the strainer and shake well to help drain excess water. Let the rice sit in the strainer, stirring once or twice, until it’s more or less dry to the touch, 15 to 30 minutes.
Transfer the rice to the rice cooker, add 2¼ cups of fresh water, and cook according to the manufacturer’s directions. Gently fluff the rice with a plastic or wooden rice paddle and serve immediately or keep warm in the rice cooker.
FURIKAKE WITH SHRIMP SHELLS AND POTATO CHIPS
Every Japanese home has a shaker of furikake in the pantry. Typically a mixture of dried sea vegetables, dried fish, sesame seeds, and other seasonings, it adds salty-sweet flavor and a jolt of umami to whatever it touches. We keep it on hand mainly for those moments when all the food is gone but we’re craving more rice—the wonderfully bland staple that needs just a little flavor boost.
My version builds on the classic combination with crunchy potato chips and incredibly tasty but often discarded shrimp shells (whenever you remove them from the crustaceans, save them in a freezer bag for this purpose!). A tablespoon or two turns plain white rice into a stimulating snack and adds extra excitement to rice balls (see Onigiri ). But the fun doesn’t stop there: furikake also makes a surprising and amazing topping for buttered popcorn.
Since potato chip brands vary in saltiness, remember to season the mixture to taste, keeping in mind that it should be salty enough for just a tablespoon or so to flavor a bowl of plain rice.
MAKES ABOUT 1 CUP
2 cups fresh or frozen shrimp shells (from about 1¼ pounds shrimp)
¾ cup loosely packed bonito flakes (katsuobushi )
½ cup coarsely crumbled salted potato chips
1 sheet nori, broken into several pieces
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
Preheat the oven to 250˚F. Spread the shrimp shells in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake, tossing occasionally, until completely dry and crumbly, about 45 minutes. Cool completely.
One ingredient by one, grind the shrimp shells, bonito flakes, potato chips, and nori in a small food processor or large spice grinder until you have a mixture of pieces that are about the size of coarse sea salt (a little bigger or smaller is fine). Nori is harder to process, so don’t worry if the pieces are a bit bigger than the rest. Combine them all in a small container with the sesame seeds and salt. Stir well and season with salt to taste.
You can keep the furikake in an airtight container in a cool dark place (not the refrigerator) for up to 10 days.
ONIGIRI
RICE BALLS
Go into any convenience store in Japan (or peek inside the lunch box of any kid or businessperson) and you’ll see rows of the classic, portable, and shockingly tasty Japanese snack called onigiri, triangular rice balls wrapped in nori seaweed and filled with delicious things like pickled plum or broiled salmon. Not only that, you’ll also see some very clever packaging. At first, the triangle looks like seaweed pressed against rice—a recipe for soggy seaweed. But follow the instructions on the package—pull this tab, tug at that corner—and suddenly you realize there was a plastic barrier the whole time. Now your onigiri is wrapped in crisp seaweed! You don’t apply such genius to a snack unless it is a national sensation. And onigiri is just that.
At home, it makes a beautiful blank canvas. The filling can be anything you desire, from my favorite, Tuna Mayo , or enticing leftovers from last night’s dinner. You can even roll the outsides in toasted sesame seeds, shichimi togarashi (Japanese seven-spice powder), or furikake . The balls are easy to mold with your hands, but you can also use cookie cutters or even plastic onigiri molds, which are inexpensive and come in shapes such as stars, teddy bears, and octopuses.
MAKES ABOUT 8
4 cups freshly made short-grain white rice
Kosher salt
¾ cup leftover Sake Shioyaki (salt-grilled salmon), Hijiki (sweet simmered hijiki seaweed), or Tori No Teriyaki (chicken teriyaki), chopped if necessary, at room temperature
4 nori seaweed sheets (about 8½ by 7½ inches), halved lengthwise
Let the rice cool slightly, so you can handle it without burning your fingers.
Pour some salt in a small bowl. To make each ball, wet your hands slightly with water, dip two fingertips in the salt, and briefly rub your hands together to distribute the salt. Grab a ½-cup clump of rice and spread it slightly in your palm to form a ¾-inch layer.
Make a slight indentation in the center and add about a generous tablespoon of the filling, pressing lightly to flatten it if necessary. Fold the rice around the filling to enclose it completely, using a little more rice if necessary. Use both hands to shape the rice into a rough ball, then firmly pack it to form a rough triangle that has about 3-inch sides and is about 1 inch thick.
Repeat with the remaining rice and filling.
Just before you eat the rice triangles, wrap them in the nori. Serve right away, while the nori is still slightly crisp.
Tuna Mayo
Of all the fillings that wind up inside onigiri, my favorite is tuna mayo, probably the one Japanese phrase every English speaker understands. It is almost exactly what its name suggests: canned tuna mixed with mayo. In particular, I recommend the Japanese variety called Kewpie, which has even more flavor than Hellmann’s.
MAKES ABOUT ½ CUP
One 5-ounce can solid light tuna (preferably oil-packed), drained
2 tablespoons mayonnaise, preferably Kewpie mayonnaise
Kosher salt
Combine the tuna and mayonnaise in a bowl and stir well, breaking up any chunks. Season with salt to taste.
YAKI ONIGIRI
GRILLED RICE BALLS
Onigiri, the rice balls sold from convenience stores and packed for school lunches, become a different kind of treat at the yakitori shop. As cooks rotate skewers of meat and vegetables over hot charcoal, they also throw unwrapped, unfilled onigiri on the grill, basting them with a dead simple sauce until they’re smoky and crispy on the outside. They’re especially tasty after a little too much sake.
MAKES ABOUT 8
Special Equipment
A gas or charcoal grill (grates lightly rubbed with vegetable oil), or a flameproof rack
A food-safe brush
4 cups freshly made short-grain white rice
Kosher salt
¼ cup Japanese soy sauce
¼ cup mirin (sweet rice wine)
Let the rice cool slightly, so you can handle it without burning your fingers. Form the onigiri as instructed on making sure to pack the triangles especially firmly. Do not wrap with nori. Let them cool completely. You can wrap them in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for up to a day.
When you’re ready to eat, prepare the grill to cook over medium-high heat. (If you’re using the flameproof rack, set it on a burner and turn the heat to medium.)
Stir together the soy sauce and mirin in a small bowl. Put the rice triangles on their sides directly on the grill or rack. Cook until the undersides are dry and slightly crispy with spots of brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Carefully flip them, brush the tops and sides with the soy sauce mixture, and cook, flipping and brushing every few minutes, until both sides have formed a crunchy crust and are golden brown with dark brown spots, about 8 minutes more. Serve right away.
OMURAISU
OMELET WITH KETCHUP-FRIED RICE
This dish—an omelet filled with ketchup-spiked fried rice—is one of several beloved Japanese classics that seem a bit odd to many Americans. Yet I’ve seen friends go from skeptic to convert with just one bite. Ketchup has become almost as common a sight in the Japanese pantry as soy sauce and, like soy sauce, it provides a blast of flavor and umami, in this case to leftover rice. Skilled home cooks can use a flick of their wrist to wrap the omelet around the rice in the skillet, but don’t worry—my recipe offers an easier way.
SERVES 4
For the Ketchup-Fried Rice
½ pound boneless skinless chicken breast or thigh, cut into ½-inch pieces
¾ cup sliced (¼ inch) green beans
½ cup diced (¼ inch) carrot
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into several pieces
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup very thinly sliced fresh shiitake mushroom caps
½ cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
½ cup finely chopped yellow onion
6 cups cooked short-grain white rice
¾ cup ketchup
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Black pepper to taste
For the Omuraisu
8 large eggs
Kosher salt and black pepper
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 4 equal pieces
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
MAKE THE KETCHUP-FRIED RICE
Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Add the chicken, cook for 1 minute, then add the green beans and carrot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is just cooked through and the vegetables are still crunchy, about 1 minute more. Drain well.
Heat the butter and oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the chicken, green beans, carrot, mushrooms, corn, and onion. Cook, stirring, until the onion is translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the rice and cook, stirring often and breaking up the clumps but making sure not to smash the grains, until the rice is heated through, about 5 minutes.
Add the ketchup, salt, and pepper and cook, folding and stirring, until the rice is an even color, about 2 minutes. Transfer the rice to a bowl, cover, and keep warm.
MAKE THE OMURAISU
Make one omelet at a time. Crack 2 eggs into a bowl, add a generous pinch of salt and pepper, and lightly beat the eggs.
Combine ½ tablespoon of the butter with ½ tablespoon of the oil in a 10- to 12-inch nonstick skillet, set it over medium-high heat, and let the butter melt and froth, swirling the skillet. Add the beaten eggs and cook, gently pushing the edges in an inch or two as they set and swirling the pan to allow the still-raw egg to hit the pan, until the entire omelet is set but still glossy, 1 to 2 minutes.
Add a quarter of the rice to a plate, slide the omelet on top, and use a kitchen towel to tuck the edges of the eggs under the rice to make an omelet shape. Repeat with the remaining eggs and rice.
TAKIKOMI GOHAN
DASHI-SIMMERED RICE WITH VEGETABLES
This is one of the most elegant rice dishes I know: the flavors are mild but perfectly balanced, so nothing super sweet or salty or bold comes through, but the overall effect is incredibly rich and satisfying. The secret is to first simmer the vegetables in a blend of delicious liquids (dashi, mirin, sake) and then cook the rice in that magic broth.
In the old days, this dish was made in an okama, a pot with a wooden lid that was set over hot charcoal, and it browned at the bottom as the sugar in the mirin gently caramelized. For you and me, any pot will do. You can even use a rice cooker! In fact, high-end rice cookers even have a “ takikomi gohan” button. My recipe calls for classic ingredients, but feel free to use parsnips instead of burdock root, sliced fresh or rehydrated dried shiitake mushrooms instead of the konnyaku, and extra chicken instead of fried tofu skins.
SERVES 4
1½ teaspoons vegetable oil
1½ teaspoons toasted sesame oil
¼ pound boneless chicken thigh, trimmed and cut into ¾-inch pieces
½ cup sliced (1½ by ½ by ⅛ inch) peeled carrot
½ cup sliced (1½ by ½ by ⅛ inch) store-bought abura-age (fried tofu skins)
¼ cup peeled sliced (1½ by ½ by ⅛ inch) burdock root (gobo ) or parsnip
⅓ cup sliced (1 by ½ by ⅛ inch) gray konnyaku (Japanese “yam cake”)
2¼ cups Dashi (dried fish and kelp stock) or Kombu Dashi (kelp stock)
2 tablespoons Japanese soy sauce
1 tablespoon sake (Japanese rice wine)
1 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
2 cups short-grain white rice (“sushi rice”), washed well and drained
Pour the oils in a small pot, add the chicken, set the pot over medium heat, and wait for the chicken to sizzle. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is no longer pink on the outside, about 2 minutes.
Add the carrot, abura-age, burdock, and konnyaku and stir well, then add the dashi, soy sauce, sake, mirin, and salt. Raise the heat to medium-high, bring the liquid to a strong simmer, and cook until the carrots are tender with a slight bite, 5 to 8 minutes. Use a spoon to skim off any white scum from the surface. Strain the liquid through a sieve into a large heatproof measuring cup, reserving the solids. If necessary, pour off any excess liquid or add enough water or extra dashi to give you 2 cups of liquid.
Combine the liquid and rice in a rice cooker or a medium pot and stir briefly. If you’re using a rice cooker, use the white rice setting if there is one and press the “cook” button. If you’re using a pot, cover it, set it over medium-high heat, and bring the liquid to a boil. Immediately reduce the heat to very low to maintain a bare simmer and cook, doing your best not to peek under the lid, until the rice has absorbed the liquid and is tender, about 15 minutes. If you are using a rice cooker, wait until the rice has finished cooking completely and the timer goes off.
Add the reserved chicken mixture (but don’t stir just yet) and cover with the lid again. Remove from the heat and let the pot or rice cooker sit until the chicken mixture is hot and the rice is completely tender, at least 10 or up to 20 minutes. Stir gently but well, then serve right away.
TAKIKOMI ONIGIRI
Takikomi gohan makes amazing onigiri (rice balls). Before you refrigerate leftovers, form them into balls as instructed in onigiri . Wrap in plastic and chill for up to two days. Microwave until just warm through, then remove the plastic wrap and eat right away.
CHAHAN
JAPANESE-STYLE FRIED RICE
There is no better use for leftover rice than chahan. A brief trip in a pan resurrects the grains and a few pantry ingredients—little more than eggs, oil, and salt—transform tired rice into a super-satisfying meal. To give the humble dish a little flair, I whip up a saucy broth filled with vegetables and shrimp and pour it on at the last minute. Of course, you can add any ingredients you like—peas or asparagus, kimchi or Japanese pickles, pork, or even, as I do at Morimoto Napa, duck confit.
SERVES 4
¼ cup diced (¼-inch cubes) carrot
12 medium shrimp (about 6 ounces), peeled and deveined, cut crosswise into thirds
¼ cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
¼ cup fresh or frozen shelled edamame
¼ cup diced (¼-inch pieces) fresh shiitake mushrooms or rehydrated dried shiitakes
2¼ cups low-sodium chicken stock
3 tablespoons Japanese soy sauce
3 tablespoons sake (Japanese rice wine)
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
White or black pepper to taste
¼ cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
6 packed cups cooked short-grain white rice , preferably 1 or 2 days old
1 generous tablespoon thinly sliced scallion greens
Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Add the carrot and cook 2 minutes. Add the shrimp and cook until they’re just cooked through, 1 to 2 minutes more. Drain and then return them to the pot. Add the corn, edamame, shiitakes, chicken stock, soy sauce, sake, sugar, and ½ teaspoon of salt. Set the pot over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. In a small container, stir together the cornstarch and 3 tablespoons of water until smooth. Gradually add the cornstarch mixture to the pot, stirring constantly. Let the stock mixture come to a boil again and cook just until slightly thickened, about 3 minutes. Take the pot off the heat and stir in the sesame oil and pepper to taste; keep warm, covered.
Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add the eggs and cook, stirring constantly, until they’re barely cooked, about 30 seconds. Add the rice and cook, stirring often and breaking up the clumps but making sure not to smash the grains, until the rice is heated through and the egg has browned slightly, about 4 minutes. Season with about 1 teaspoon of the salt and pepper to taste.
Divide the fried rice among 4 small bowls and firmly press down on the rice to pack it into the bowls. Overturn the bowls onto 4 large shallow bowls. Remove the bowls to reveal the mounds of rice and pour the sauce over each one. Top with the scallions and serve.
SU MESHI
SUSHI RICE
No matter how closely associated the two have become, the word sushi doesn’t mean raw fish. Sushi is the result of two words— su, meaning “vinegar,” and meshi, meaning “rice”—getting smushed together. And as all real sushi chefs know, good vinegared rice is more important to top-quality sushi than even the most expensive tuna belly. That’s why chefs spend years learning to cook rice to the perfect texture and to add just the right balance of sweet and tart flavors.
Perfect sushi rice topped with pristine seafood is why customers spend hundreds of dollars to eat in near silence at the sushi temples of Tokyo. Yet sushi doesn’t always have to be such a serious experience. Perfection, after all, is the enemy of fun. So here I do what home cooks all over Japan do. I let go of the methods of masters—sourcing the finest raw rice, polishing it myself, fanning the cooked grains in a giant wooden tub to eliminate moisture—to make effortless sushi rice that tastes like a master made it.
The ambitious among you will surely have fun meticulously slicing tuna and yellowtail to make nigiri sushi, the fish-topped fingers of rice sold at sushi bars, but I recommend a less elaborate route. Make sushi rice into the rolls called temaki , or use it as the base for Tekka Don No Poke (Hawaiian poke-style tuna rice bowl).
MAKES ABOUT 8 CUPS
For the Sushi Vinegar
One 2-inch square piece of kombu (dried kelp)
1 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
½ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup kosher salt
For the Rice
3 cups short-grain white rice (“sushi rice”)
MORIMOTO MAGIC TRICK TO DISTRIBUTE THE VINEGAR EVENLY, I LIKE TO HOLD A WOODEN SPATULA PARALLEL TO THE RICE AND POUR THE SUSHI VINEGAR ONTO IT AS I WAVE THE SPATULA BACK AND FORTH.
MAKE THE SUSHI VINEGAR
Briefly and gently wipe the kombu with a damp towel to remove any dirt or grit, but do not scrub off the white stuff, which is full of umami.
Combine the vinegar, sugar, salt, and kombu in a small pot and set it over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring often, just until the sugar has dissolved, about 1 minute. Do not let it boil. Let the mixture cool to room temperature.
Measure ½ cup of the vinegar mixture and set it aside. Store the rest, including the kombu, in an airtight container in the fridge for up to several months.
COOK THE RICE
Put the rice in a large mixing bowl and add enough water to cover the rice by 1 inch. Use your hands to stir and agitate the rice to release the starch from the exterior of the grains. Empty the water, fill the bowl again, and repeat the process until the fresh water no longer becomes cloudy when you stir the rice. Drain the rice in a mesh strainer, shaking well to help drain excess water. Let the rice sit in the strainer, stirring once or twice, until it’s more or less dry to the touch, 15 to 30 minutes.
Combine the rice and 3 cups of fresh water in a rice cooker and cook according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
While the rice is hot, gently scoop it into a bowl. Sprinkle the reserved ½ cup of sushi vinegar over the rice. Gently fold the rice to make sure the vinegar is well distributed without smashing the grains. Cover with a clean kitchen towel pressed to the surface of the rice and let the rice cool to just slightly above room temperature before using for temaki (hand rolls).
CHIRASHI ZUSHI
SCATTERED SUSHI
Every good sushi restaurant offers a rendition of this wide bowl of vinegared rice “scattered” (chirashi ) with colorful toppings. At the best sushi-ya, this is an assortment of the finest seafood, often raw and meticulously sliced. At home, the toppings can be virtually anything. Tamagoyaki (Japanese omelet), poached shrimp, creamy slices of avocado, crunchy julienned cucumber, salmon roe—it’s up to you!
TEMAKI: HAND ROLLS
To this day, my favorite kind of sushi to serve is temaki, nori rolled by hand into a cylinder or cone shape around vinegared rice and a filling. It’s the only type of sushi—perhaps the only dish of any kind, in fact—that the chef hands directly to the diner. When else does a chef get to ignore the plate entirely? There’s a reason, of course: passing it directly to the customer is meant to encourage her to eat it immediately, so the nori is super-crispy and crackles under her teeth as she bites.
This serve-it-right-away commandment makes temaki perfect for a DIY sushi party. Set out a stack of nori, a big bowl of rice, and various fillings—traditional combos like ume-shiso (a tart pickled plum and Japanese mint-like herb) or modern ones like spicy tuna and tuna mayo . You can play sushi chef for the first few rolls, showing them how it’s done and reminding them to bite into the roll right away, then let your guests construct their own. Oh, did I mention there’s no bamboo mat required?
Remember, the recipes I include here are just ideas—the fun is playing around with combinations yourself.
Spicy Tuna Temaki
MAKES 8 HAND ROLLS
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon tobanjan (chile bean sauce), preferably a Japanese brand ½ teaspoon toasted sesame oil
½ teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ teaspoon freshly squeezed lime juice
4 nori seaweed sheets (about 8½ by 7½ inches), halved lengthwise
About 2 cups cooked, vinegared short-grain white rice , at room temperature
½ pound sushi-grade tuna, cut into approximately 3 by ½ by ½-inch pieces
Heaping ¼ cup thinly sliced scallion greens
Combine the mayonnaise, tobanjan, sesame oil, lemon juice, and lime juice in a small bowl and stir well. It keeps covered in the fridge for up to 2 days.
To make each hand roll, hold a piece of nori shiny side down in an open palm. Lightly moisten your other hand with water and grab about a ¼-cup clump of rice, compress it slightly to form a rough oval, and add it to one of the short sides of the nori, about 1 inch from the edge. Firmly press the rice with your pointer finger to make a lengthwise divot in the center. To the divot, add about 1 teaspoon of the mayo, 2 pieces of the tuna, and about 2 teaspoons of the scallions.
Roll the nori around the filling to form a cone or cylinder. Eat right away.
Ume-Shiso Temaki
MAKES 8 HAND ROLLS
4 nori seaweed sheets (about 8½ by 7½ inches), halved lengthwise
About 2 cups cooked, vinegared short-grain white rice , at room temperature
5 umeboshi (Japanese pickled “plums”), pitted, roughly chopped, and smushed to a paste
8 fresh shiso leaves (also called Japanese mint and perilla)
¼ pound crunchy cucumber (preferably Japanese, English, or Persian), peeled, seeded, and cut into thin matchsticks
To make each hand roll, hold a piece of nori shiny side down in an open palm. Lightly moisten your other hand with water and grab about a ¼-cup clump of rice, compress it slightly to form a rough oval, and add it to one of the short sides of the nori, about 1 inch from the edge. Firmly press the rice with your pointer finger to make a lengthwise divot in the center. Spread about ¼ teaspoon of the umeboshi in the divot, top with a shiso leaf, and a generous pinch of the cucumber.
Roll the nori around the filling to form a cone or cylinder. Eat right away.
Vegetable Temaki
MAKES 8 HAND ROLLS
4 nori seaweed sheets (about 8½ by 7½ inches), halved lengthwise
About 2 cups cooked, vinegared short-grain white rice , at room temperature
About 1½ teaspoons wasabi paste
About 1½ tablespoons furikake , store-bought or homemade
8 fresh shiso leaves (also called Japanese mint and perilla)
¼ pound crunchy cucumber (preferably Japanese, English, or Persian), seeded and cut into 4 by ¼-inch matchsticks
2 ounces carrot (about ½ of a medium carrot), peeled and cut into 4 by ¼-inch matchsticks
1 loosely packed cup kaiware daikon (radish sprouts) or another microgreen (optional)
To make each hand roll, hold a piece of nori shiny side down in an open palm. Lightly moisten your other hand with water and grab about a ¼-cup clump of rice, compress it slightly to form a rough oval, and add it to one of the short sides of the nori, about 1 inch from the edge. Firmly press the rice with your pointer finger to make a lengthwise divot in the center. Spread on a little wasabi and add a generous sprinkle of furikake, 1 shiso leaf, 1 piece of cucumber, 1 piece of carrot, and a generous pinch of kaiware daikon.
Roll the nori around the filling to form a cone or cylinder. Eat right away.
California Temaki
MAKES 8 HAND ROLLS
½ firm-ripe Hass avocado
4 nori seaweed sheets (about 8½ by 7½ inches), halved lengthwise
About 2 cups cooked, vinegared short-grain white rice , at room temperature
¼ pound crunchy cucumber (preferably Japanese, English, or Persian), peeled, seeded, and cut into thin matchsticks
¼ pound surimi (mock crab) or fresh lump crabmeat
2 ounces tobiko (flying-fish roe; optional)
Remove the pit of the avocado, and peel off the skin as if you’re peeling an egg. Cut into long, approximately ¼-inch-thick slices.
To make each hand roll, hold a piece of nori shiny side down in an open palm. Lightly moisten your other hand with water and grab about a ¼-cup clump of rice, compress it slightly to form a rough oval, and add it to one of the short sides of the nori, about 1 inch from the edge. Firmly press the rice with your pointer finger to make a lengthwise divot in the center.
To each, add a slice of avocado, a generous pinch of the cucumber, a pointer-finger-size piece of surimi or generous tablespoon of crabmeat, and 1 generous teaspoon of tobiko.
Roll the nori around the filling to form a cone or cylinder. Eat right away.
JAPANESE GRANDMOTHER WISDOM
Salt is like fairy dust. It can make amazing things happen. Before you slice the cucumbers, lightly sprinkle kosher salt onto them and roughly rub the salt against the skin. This technique, known as itazuri, dislodges an invisible, slightly bitter substance from the skin. Briefly rinse it off, dry the cucumber, and proceed with the recipe.
BATTERA
PRESSED MACKEREL SUSHI
Even though battera’s popularity in Japan surpasses that of the spicy tuna roll, few Americans have ever heard of this tasty type of sushi: mackerel cured to preserve its freshness and mellow its fishiness, leaving a fresh sea flavor accented by vinegar. Once a specialty of Kansai, an inland region that centuries ago lacked access to fresh fish, battera offers a window into a time long before tuna could travel from Tokyo to New York in a day.
SERVES 6 TO 8
Special Equipment
Bamboo sushi mat (makisu )
Two 6- to 7-ounce Atlantic mackerel (saba ) fillets
½ cup fine salt
About 2 cups unseasoned rice vinegar
4 thin lemon slices
6 fresh shiso leaves (also called Japanese mint and perilla)
2 tablespoons julienned pickled ginger (gari )
2 cups cooked, vinegared short-grain white rice
At least 2½ hours and up to 5½ hours before you plan to eat, put the fillets on a plate and generously sprinkle the salt onto both sides. Gently shake to remove any excess, transfer the fillets to a cake rack set over a large plate, and let them sit at room temperature for 1½ hours.
Rinse the fillets under running water, rubbing them gently, then pat dry and transfer to two resealable bags. Divide the vinegar and lemon slices between the bags, and refrigerate for 45 minutes. Drain the fillets and pat them dry again.
Put the fillets skin side up on a cutting board. Starting at an edge of the widest end of each fillet, pinch the transparent top layer of skin, gently pull it away from the shiny skin, and discard it.
Put the fillet skin side down on a square of plastic wrap. Use tweezers or needle-nose pliers to remove the pin bones: identify the bones by running a finger along the center of the fillet. One by one, grab them at the tip with the tweezers or pliers and firmly pull at an angle to remove them. Feel for any additional bones or cartilage, especially near the belly, and remove.
Working one at a time, butterfly the fillets: Arrange the fillet perpendicular to your cutting board. Identify the center of the fillet, where the spine used to be; you are going to butterfly the fish on both sides of the spine. Hold your knife parallel to the cutting board with the blade aligned with the spine. Cut through the flesh of the fish, stopping about ½ inch before reaching the edge. Use your fingers to open the cut flesh like a book. Repeat on the other side of the spine. Then repeat with the other fillet.
Put the fillet skin side down on a square of plastic wrap. Arrange the shiso leaves in a single layer along the center of each fillet. Evenly spread the ginger onto the shiso leaves. Evenly spread the rice in a 2-inch-wide stripe along the center of the fillet. Wrap each in the plastic wrap to form a tight log. Put the sushi mat on the cutting board so the slats run right to left. One at a time, transfer the plastic-wrapped logs to the mat, fold one edge of the mat over the log, and use your hands to press firmly on the top and sides to compress the battera slightly.
Let the plastic-wrapped log rest at room temperature for at least 15 minutes or up to 3 hours. The longer it rests, the more flavor the sushi rice will absorb from the fish, shiso, and ginger. When you’re ready to eat, remove the plastic wrap, cut crosswise into ¾-inch-thick slices, and serve.
DONBURI
Rice bowls
Donburi, or don for short, encompasses a wide range of dishes that take a similar form: a large bowl filled with rice, then topped with flavor-packed ingredients cooked in an irresistible sauce. Rice bowls like this might seem simple and old-fashioned, but they’re actually a fairly modern concept in Japan. While rice has a long history on the Japanese table, it was traditionally served plain and in its own bowl. It wasn’t until a few centuries ago, when the population became busy and needed faster meal options, that these one-bowl meals took hold. Today, they’re everywhere in Japan, at fast-food-style rice bowl restaurants and in homes around the country.
OYAKO DON
CHICKEN AND EGG RICE BOWL
This rice bowl is elegantly simple—so simple that you might flip past this page without giving it a second thought. Do not make this mistake! Oyako means “parent and child” and refers poetically to the rice bowl’s star ingredients, chicken and egg. The pairing might not sound exciting, but I assure you that once they’re simmered in a magical mixture of dashi, soy sauce, and mirin, they transform into an incredibly satisfying dish that’s so much more than the sum of its parts.
People often cook this dish in a special oyako don pan, but you’ll have great success in a small skillet. Just don’t try to double or quadruple the amounts in a larger skillet—it won’t turn out right. Instead, treat this dish as a great lunch or dinner for yourself. You deserve it!
MAKES 1 HEARTY MEAL
⅓ cup Dashi (dried fish and kelp stock) or Kombu Dashi (kelp stock)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon Japanese soy sauce
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
¼ teaspoon granulated sugar
5 ounces boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into about 1-inch pieces
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
2 large eggs, beaten
¼ cup very thinly sliced scallions (white and light green parts), preferably cut into long diagonal slices
1½ cups cooked short-grain white rice , hot
Large pinch kizame (shredded) nori or ¼ nori seaweed sheet, cut into thin strips with scissors
Combine the dashi, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar in a medium bowl and stir until the sugar has dissolved.
Combine the chicken and sesame oil in a small skillet, stir well, and set it over medium-high heat. Once the chicken begins to sizzle, cook, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is no longer pink on the outside, about 3 minutes.
Reduce the heat to medium, add the dashi mixture, and let it come to a simmer. In a steady stream, pour the eggs evenly over the chicken and sprinkle the scallions on top. Cover the skillet with a lid, leaving the lid slightly ajar. Reduce the heat to maintain a simmer and cook, shaking the pan occasionally to make sure the eggs don’t stick to the skillet, until the eggs have just fully set, 6 to 8 minutes. There will be a little liquid left in the skillet.
Spoon the rice into a shallow serving bowl. Bring the skillet to the bowl, then tilt and wiggle the skillet to slide the contents, liquid and all, onto the rice. Top with the nori. Eat right away.
KATSU DON
PORK CUTLET AND EGG RICE BOWL
Home cooks don’t fry a whole batch of tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlets) just to make katsu don. No, katsu don is what happens when you find yourself at home with an empty stomach and a cutlet left over from the night before. Since the cutlets will no longer be crispy anyway, you give up on crispness altogether and go straight for flavor, simmering the pork in seasoned dashi and adding egg for extra richness. Then you slide the omelet-like result onto a bowl of hot rice.
SERVES 1
⅓ cup Dashi (dried fish and kelp stock) or Kombu Dashi (kelp stock)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon Japanese soy sauce
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
¼ teaspoon granulated sugar
¼ cup thinly sliced white onion
1 tonkatsu (Japanese-style fried pork cutlet, cut crosswise into ¾-inch-thick slices
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
¼ cup very thinly sliced scallions or roughly chopped mitsuba
1½ cups cooked short-grain white rice , hot
Combine the dashi, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar in a small bowl and stir. Spread the onion in a small nonstick skillet, top with the slices of cutlet, and pour the dashi mixture over the cutlet. Set the skillet over medium-high heat, let it come to a simmer, and cover the skillet.
Reduce the heat to maintain a simmer and cook until the onion has wilted, about 3 minutes. Baste the cutlet with the liquid and scoop some of the onion on top of the cutlet. In a steady stream, pour the eggs evenly over the cutlet and sprinkle on the scallions or mitsuba. Cover the skillet again and cook just until the eggs have fully set, about 3 minutes. There will be a little liquid left in the skillet.
Put the rice in a large bowl. Bring the skillet to the bowl, then tilt and wiggle the skillet to slide the contents, liquid and all, onto the rice.
SUTEKI DON
STEAK RICE BOWLS WITH SPICY TERIYAKI SAUCE
When I’m eager for beef at one of the busy Japanese lunch shops that specialize in donburi (one-bowl meals of rice topped with a variety of simple foods), I usually order gyu don, thinly shaved beef and onion simmered in slightly sweet sauce. But I must say that after living in America for more than two decades, I just as often crave slices of suteki (that is, steak spelled phonetically, if you have a strong Japanese accent). I opt for the relatively inexpensive and super-flavorful skirt, sear it until it’s charred on the outside and pink in the center, then spoon on teriyaki sauce spiked with butter and chile-bean sauce. Over rice and alongside the simple vegetable stir-fry called yasai itame , steak becomes a balanced meal.
SERVES 4
1 pound skirt steak, outside fat trimmed, patted dry
Kosher salt and ground black pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup teriyaki sauce
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon tobanjan (chile bean sauce), preferably a Japanese brand
1 teaspoon finely grated garlic
1 tablespoon cornstarch
6 cups cooked short-grain white rice , warm ¼ cup thinly sliced scallions (green parts only)
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
Prepare a grill to cook over medium-high heat or preheat a large heavy skillet over high heat. Cut the steak crosswise into a few pieces if necessary to fit in the skillet. Season both sides with salt and pepper and drizzle with the oil.
Cook, flipping once, until both sides are deep brown and the steak is cooked how you like it, about 8 minutes for medium rare. Let the meat rest while you make the sauce.
Combine the teriyaki sauce, butter, tobanjan, and garlic in a small saucepan, set it over medium heat, and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, combine the cornstarch with 1 tablespoon water and stir until smooth. When the teriyaki mixture comes to a simmer, stir in the cornstarch mixture. Cook, stirring occasionally, just until the sauce turns shiny and thickens slightly, 3 minutes.
Divide the rice among shallow bowls and spoon about 3 tablespoons of sauce over each one. Thinly slice the steak against the grain. Top each bowl with the steak slices, spoon on the remaining sauce, and sprinkle on the scallions and sesame seeds. Serve right away.
TEKKA DON NO POKE
HAWAIIAN POKE-STYLE TUNA RICE BOWL
Once you secure sushi-grade tuna, this meal in a bowl takes almost no effort to make. I upgrade the typical tekka don—sliced raw tuna, often briefly marinated in soy sauce—by merging it with the Hawaiian dish tuna poke (pronounced PO-kay), which I fell for while opening my restaurant in Waikiki. The cubes of luscious crimson fish dressed with a little salt, sugar, and spice taste great over wonderfully plain white rice or less traditional but no less delicious sushi rice.
SERVES 4
¼ cup Japanese soy sauce
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 to 2 teaspoons tobanjan (chile bean sauce), preferably a Japanese brand
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 pound sushi-grade tuna, cut into ½-inch cubes
½ medium Hass avocado, peeled, pitted, cut into ½-inch pieces
6 cups cooked short-grain white rice or cooked, vinegared short-grain white rice , warm
1 nori seaweed sheet
¼ cup thinly sliced fresh shiso leaves (also called Japanese mint and perilla) or scallion greens
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
Combine the soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil, tobanjan, and sugar in a medium mixing bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the tuna and avocado to the bowl, toss well, and set aside to marinate for a few minutes but no more than 5 minutes.
Divide the rice among 4 wide bowls. Top each bowl with the tuna and avocado, leaving the sauce behind. Then drizzle the sauce over the tuna and avocado. Tear the nori into small pieces and scatter some over each bowl; top with the shiso and sesame seeds. Eat right away.
SUPU
Soups
The importance of soup is sometimes difficult for my Western friends to wrap their heads around. For them, soup is a once-in-a-while dish, maybe an appetizer at a restaurant or, on a winter’s night, the meal itself along with bread. Not for Japanese people. We eat it every day. We eat it for dinner, lunch, and breakfast—believe me, miso soup with rice and pickles beats eggs on toast any day. No truly balanced Japanese meal is complete without it. Light and nourishing, soup provides contrast to the starchy rice, intensely sweet and salty stewed fish, and other dishes on the table.
In this chapter, you’ll find some of my favorites. There’s the classic miso soup, of course, and I can’t wait for you to try it again—for the fi rst time. You see, it’s different when it’s made with care. And two variations await you, one made with briny clams and intriguing red miso and another that’s especially hearty, chock-full of root vegetables and pork belly. Not only that—there’s the revelatory Japanese take on Chinese egg drop, a countryside version that one-ups chicken noodle and a luxurious broth that celebrates the aroma of mushrooms.
MISO SHIRU
MISO SOUP WITH TOFU
You know those little packets of dehydrated miso soup with tiny cubes of dried tofu? They need to be gathered up and sent into space—they’re fit for astronaut food and nothing else. The real thing is unbelievably delicious, made with barely more than dashi stock and high-quality, umami-filled miso. Once dashi becomes one of your kitchen staples, the soup comes together nearly as fast as the instant version and tastes a hundred times as good. It’s so easy that you might even start serving it for breakfast, as many Japanese cooks do, along with rice and pickles.
The key to making the soup is not cooking the miso too much, which destroys its delicate flavor and healthful properties. Be careful, then, not to let the broth come to a boil or cook for more than a minute or two after adding the miso.
SERVES 4
4 cups Dashi (dried fish and kelp stock) or Kombu Dashi (kelp stock)
¼ cup shiro (white) miso, plus more if necessary
½ cup drained silken tofu
1 generous tablespoon thinly sliced scallion (preferably light green parts)
2 tablespoons dried wakame seaweed, soaked in cold water for 5 minutes, then drained well
Bring the dashi to a very gentle simmer in a small pot. Put the miso in a small bowl, spoon in about ½ cup of the hot dashi, and stir, breaking up clumps, until very smooth. Pour the mixture back into the pot.
Use a spoon to scoop small chunks of the tofu into the pot. Add the scallion and seaweed, stir very gently, and wait just until the tofu is heated through, about 1 minute. Season with more miso to taste (mixing it with a little hot soup before adding it). Ladle the soup into bowls and eat right away.
ASARI NO MISO SHIRU
MISO SOUP WITH CLAMS
The standard miso soup is subtle and soothing. This version is bolder, alive with the briny flavor of clams and particularly complex if you choose to use aka (red) miso, a darker, caramel-y cousin of the more common white miso. The Japanese man in me craves a big bowl of rice to eat alongside, but now that I’ve lived in the United States for more than two decades, I wouldn’t refuse crusty bread to sop up the irresistible broth.
SERVES 4
Special Equipment
Cheesecloth
4 cups Dashi (dried fish and kelp stock) or Kombu Dashi (kelp stock)
¼ cup sake (Japanese rice wine)
24 Manila or littleneck clams, scrubbed well and rinsed (see Note)
¼ cup shiro (white) or aka (red) miso
1 tablespoon thinly sliced scallion
Combine the dashi, sake, and clams in a medium pot, set over medium-high heat, and bring to a simmer. Adjust the heat to maintain a gentle simmer and cook, stirring occasionally once the clams begin to open, until they’ve all opened, about 3 minutes. Turn off the heat.
Transfer the clams to a small bowl. To remove any lingering sand from the clams, strain the broth through a sieve lined with two layers of cheesecloth or a sturdy paper towel into a new small pot. Bring the broth to a very gentle simmer over low heat.
Put the miso in a small bowl, spoon in about ½ cup of the broth, and stir, breaking up clumps, until very smooth. Pour the mixture back into the pot. Add the clams to the pot and cook until they’re warmed through, about 30 seconds. Turn off the heat, sprinkle on the scallion, and serve immediately.
Note: Sometimes clams have sand in their shells. To remove the sand and spare yourself a gritty soup, fill a medium pot with water and add enough salt so the water tastes as salty as the sea. Add the clams and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or up to 12 hours. Drain and rinse the clams well before you make the soup.
TONJIRU
HEARTY MISO SOUP WITH PORK AND VEGETABLES
Many Americans have fond memories of chili bubbling away on the stove on a cold winter day. The closest equivalent for me is this hearty rendition of miso soup, so substantial that miso stew seems like a more appropriate description. Easy to prepare and brimming with healthy ingredients, tonjiru is the kind of dish busy families eat for weeknight suppers. I like to use an array of root vegetables from the farmers’ market—earthy-sweet sunchokes, striking golden beets, which won’t stain the soup like red ones—but the combination is up to you and the soup will satisfy even if you have only carrots and potatoes.
SERVES 4 TO 6
3 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
½ pound pork belly, cut into thin, bite-size slices
1 cup roughly chopped (into irregular ½-inch pieces) gray konnyaku (Japanese “yam cake”)
1 cup roughly chopped (into irregular ¾-inch pieces) peeled carrot
1 cup roughly chopped (into irregular ½-inch pieces) peeled burdock (gobo ) or parsnip
1 cup roughly chopped (into irregular ¾-inch pieces) peeled golden beets
1 cup roughly chopped (into irregular ¾-inch pieces) peeled sunchokes or daikon radish
6 medium fresh or rehydrated dried shiitake mushroom caps, quartered
10 cups Dashi (dried fish and kelp stock) or Kombu Dashi (kelp stock)
⅔ cup shiro (white) miso
1 teaspoon finely grated peeled ginger
½ cup very thinly sliced scallions (white and light green parts only)
Japanese chile powder (ichimi ) to taste
Combine the oil and pork in a large pot and set the pot over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the pork is no longer pink, about 3 minutes. Add the konnyaku, carrot, burdock, beets, sunchokes, mushrooms, and dashi. Increase the heat to bring the dashi to a boil, then reduce the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Skim off any froth from the surface.
Stir in about half of the miso and cook at a simmer until the beets are tender with a slight bite, 20 to 25 minutes. Put the remaining miso in a small bowl, spoon in some of the hot dashi mixture, and stir, breaking up clumps, until very smooth. Stir the mixture into the pot. Reduce the heat to low, cook for 5 minutes more, and turn off the heat.
Stir in the ginger, ladle the soup into bowls, and top each bowl with scallions and chile powder.
JAPANESE GRANDMOTHER WISDOM
Sure, you could use a knife to cut the konnyaku into pieces, but many grandmothers use their hands to break it into regular pieces. Not only is this easier, but the rough crannies this method creates actually help the pieces absorb the flavor of the broth.
TAMAGO SUPU
JAPANESE EGG DROP SOUP
You’ve probably ordered egg drop soup from a Chinese restaurant and admired the wispy streaks of egg in the rich chicken broth. A great example of Chinese influence on Japanese cuisine, this soup is even lighter thanks to dashi stock but still packed with flavor, with those same delicate strands of egg suspended in the broth. It makes the perfect last-minute addition to a meal: if you have dashi on hand—which I hope I’ve convinced you that you always should—the dish is practically already made.
SERVES 4
6 cups Dashi (dried fish and kelp stock), Kombu Dashi (kelp stock), or low-sodium chicken stock
½ pound silken tofu, drained and cut into ½-inch cubes
¼ cup usukuchi (Japanese light-colored soy sauce)
2 tablespoons dried wakame seaweed, soaked in water for 5 minutes and drained well
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon sake (Japanese rice wine)
1½ teaspoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons cornstarch
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
¼ cup very thinly sliced scallions (white and light green parts)
Combine the dashi, tofu, usukuchi, seaweed, sake, and salt in a medium pot. Bring the dashi mixture to a simmer over medium-high heat. Meanwhile, combine the cornstarch with 3 tablespoons water in a small bowl and stir until smooth. When the dashi comes to a simmer, stir in the cornstarch mixture and let simmer for 2 minutes.
Drizzle the eggs into the soup in a circular motion, stir gently but well, and continue to cook for about 30 seconds. Divide among 4 bowls, then drizzle on the sesame oil and sprinkle on the scallions.
DANGO JIRU
JAPANESE-STYLE CHICKEN AND DUMPLING SOUP
This is the Japanese equivalent of Jewish penicillin, also known as chicken noodle soup. It’s quintessential grandmother cooking at its best. Instead of chicken broth, we use smoky dashi, and instead of noodles, we make cool, craggy gnocchi-like dumplings out of just flour and water. Every family throughout the countryside has its own version. This is my favorite.
SERVES 4
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Generous ¼ pound boneless skinless chicken thighs (about 2 small thighs), cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup thick batons (about 1 by ½ inch) peeled, seeded kabocha or another winter squash
¾ cup chopped (about ¼-inch-thick bite-size pieces) peeled daikon
½ cup matchsticks peeled burdock (gobo ) or parsnip
½ cup matchsticks peeled carrot
4 medium fresh or rehydrated dried shiitake mushroom caps, quartered
5 cups Dashi (dried fish and kelp stock) or Kombu Dashi (kelp stock)
2 tablespoons sake (Japanese rice wine)
1 tablespoon usukuchi (Japanese light-colored soy sauce) 2 teaspoons kosher salt
¾ cup cake flour or all-purpose flour
Combine the oil and chicken in a medium pot and set the pot over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is no longer pink, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the vegetables and cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 minutes. Add the dashi and increase the heat to bring the dashi to a boil. Skim off any froth from the surface. Reduce the heat to maintain a gentle simmer and cook until the vegetables are tender with a slight bite, about 10 minutes. Stir in the sake, usukuchi, and salt.
Increase the heat to bring the liquid to a strong simmer. In a small bowl, whisk together the cake flour and ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons water until very smooth. Add the mixture by the soup spoonful into the broth, leaving some space between each addition. The mixture will sink to the bottom. Do not stir. After about 4 minutes the dumplings will begin to rise from the bottom. Continue to cook until the dumplings are no longer gummy in the center, about 6 minutes more. Serve immediately.
JAPANESE GRANDMOTHER WISDOM
Unlike thin carrot or potato skins, the peel you remove from the outside of daikon before simmering the flesh is thicker, so there will be plenty of trimmings once you’ve prepared it for this soup. But don’t throw away those daikon peels! For the cause of frugality and deliciousness, grandmothers reserve them, slice them, and use the crisp slivers to make kinpira .
DOBIN MUSHI
AROMATIC “TEA POT” SOUP WITH MUSHROOMS, FISH, AND SHRIMP
When someone orders dobin mushi at one of my restaurants, I like to peek out from the kitchen and watch as the dish arrives at the table. With a flourish, the waiter sets down an earthenware teapot and cup on a wooden plank. At first, customers look perplexed, probably thinking, “Hey, I thought I ordered soup!” Then I watch confusion turn to rapture as the waiter pours the broth into the cup and everyone breathes in its incredible aroma.
This perfume comes from matsutake, the prized pine mushroom that arrives in autumn and fetches up to $1,000 per pound. The teapot, called a dobin, doesn’t just contribute a level of ceremony but also serves as the cooking vessel and locks in the aroma until it’s time to eat. My version makes a few small concessions. Fragrant chanterelle mushrooms stand in for impractical matsutake, roasted chestnuts take the place of the classic gingko, and lime makes a suitable substitute for the hard-to-find Japanese citrus sudachi, which is squeezed over the broth at the last minute. If you must, but only if you must, you can make this dish in one pot and not individual dobin. Just be sure the pot is attractive enough to bring to the table and be sure to remove the lid with your guests gathered round.
SERVES 4
Special Equipment
4 small dobin teapots (highly recommended)
3 ounces golden chanterelle mushrooms
4 cups Dashi (dried fish and kelp stock) or Kombu Dashi (kelp stock)
4 teaspoons usukuchi (Japanese light-colored soy sauce)
4 teaspoons sake (Japanese rice wine)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
8 thin, bite-size slices boneless skinless chicken thigh (from 1 small thigh)
1½ ounces delicate white-fleshed fish fillets (such as flounder, red snapper, or sea bass), cut into 8 thin bite-size slices
4 medium shrimp, peeled and deveined, halved crosswise
8 drained canned gingko nuts or 4 jarred or vacuum-packed roasted chestnuts, halved
¼ cup loosely packed very roughly chopped mitsuba or flat-leaf parsley
4 very small lime wedges
PREPARE THE DISH
Briefly rinse the mushrooms under cold running water to remove any grit and pat dry. Trim the very bottom of the stems and cut the mushrooms through the stem into ¼-inch-thick slices.
Combine the dashi, soy sauce, sake, and salt in a small pot and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Meanwhile, divide the chicken, fish, shrimp, mushrooms, and chestnuts among the teapots. Set a small rack in a large, wide pot that can accommodate all 4 dobin (or 2 large pots to split up the dobin ) and add ½ inch of water to the pot. If you do not have a rack that fits into your pots, you can invert ramekins to serve as pedestals for the dobin. Bring the water in the pot to a boil over medium-high heat. Pour the hot dashi mixture over the chicken mixture, cover the dobin, and place them into the prepared pot. Cover the pot with a lid or with a double layer of foil and steam until the chicken is fully cooked, about 5 minutes. Try not to lift the lid often.
SERVE THE DISH
Add the mitsuba or parsley, re-cover, turn off the heat, and let the mixture steep for 1 minute. Bring the pot or pots to the table and lift the lid in front of your guests so they can smell the wonderful aroma that’s released. Divide the broth among 4 small bowls, then spoon out the mushrooms and other ingredients. Serve right away with the lime wedges for squeezing over each portion.
YAKU
To grill, broil, and sear
Japanese cooks do things differently. We tend not to brown meat in a screaming hot skillet, like the French. We don’t cook with woks over roaring flames, like the Chinese. Still, our high-heat cooking—grilling, searing, and roasting—thrills like no other. I may be biased, but nowhere is grilling as simple and as tremendously tasty as it is in Japanese cuisine. The secret? Our knack for umami—generated by soy sauce, miso, and rice vinegar, among others—which incidentally is exactly why Americans love barbecue sauce and ketchup so much. In fact, our dishes have so much flavor power that stovetop cooking and broiling deliver as well.
A YAKITORI PARTY
GRILLED CHICKEN AND VEGETABLE SKEWERS
In Japan yakitori is restaurant food, and there are few places I’d rather be than a yakitori-ya, sitting elbow to elbow with fellow diners and emptying skewer after skewer of chicken meatballs, beef tongue, and shishito peppers. In America, where everyone with a backyard seems to have a gleaming grill, these grilled skewers are a home cook’s dream—simple to make for weeknight dinner and easy to scale up for a party.
Though virtually any ingredients that can be impaled are fair game, my recipe focuses on chicken. Yakitori literally means “grilled chicken,” and many restaurants offer every part imaginable, from tail to tendon. Here I stick to the most flavorful parts a home cook can get, and present them tare-style (glazed with sauce), rather than the more minimalist shio-style (with just salt). Yet shio style is fantastic as well, especially when served with Japanese seven-spice powder and yuzu kosho (an intense condiment made from chile and citrus rind that’s available at most Japanese markets and online).
SERVES 6
Special Equipment
A grill (preferably charcoal)
42 bamboo skewers, soaked in water for 30 minutes
A food-safe brush
Twelve ¾-inch-thick half-moon slices Japanese sweet potato
2 tablespoons vegetable oil, plus more for the grill grates
12 chicken wingettes
Kosher salt
24 large shishito peppers
¾ pound boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 bunch scallions, white and light green parts, cut into 1½-inch lengths
¾ pound chicken livers, trimmed of white pockets and cut into 1-inch pieces
Chicken meatballs
About 1 cup teriyaki sauce
Shichimi togarashi (Japanese seven-spice powder) to taste
Up to one day in advance, put the sweet potato in a small pot, add enough water to cover, and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat and cook just until fully tender, about 8 minutes.
Prepare the grill to cook over medium-high heat and lightly rub the grill grates with vegetable oil.
Leave the wingettes unskewered for now. Season the wingettes lightly with salt and grill, skin side down and covered, until fully cooked and slightly crispy, about 15 minutes. Let them cool to the touch.
Meanwhile, toss the sweet potato and shishitos with the oil and ½ teaspoon salt. Skewer the sweet potato slices lengthwise; skewer the chicken thigh and scallions so they alternate on the skewer; skewer the liver, leaving about ¼ inch of space between each piece; use two parallel skewers to skewer the shishito peppers (4 peppers per pair of skewers) and the wingettes (2 wingettes per pair of skewers); skewer the meatballs (see Note).
Reserve the wingettes on a baking sheet. Season the chicken thigh and liver lightly with salt. Grill (it’s best if the exposed skewers aren’t directly over the flame), turning over once, just until light golden and fully cooked, 5 to 8 minutes.
Transfer the skewers to the baking sheet with the wingettes. Generously brush the chicken thigh, liver, wingettes, and meatballs all over with teriyaki sauce. Grill along with the sweet potato and shishito pepper skewers, turning over once, until the potato slices are hot and lightly charred and the shishito peppers are charred and fully tender, about 10 minutes for the sweet potato and 4 minutes for the peppers. Meanwhile, grill the chicken skewers, turning and basting with more teriyaki sauce occasionally, until lightly charred, 2 to 5 minutes depending on the skewer.
Serve immediately with spice powder for sprinkling.
Note: When you thread the ingredients on the skewers, leave the bottom 2 inches of each skewer empty and make sure the tips are just barely sticking out (otherwise they could burn).
TSUKUNE NO TERIYAKI
CHICKEN MEATBALLS WITH TERIYAKI SAUCE
The secret to these scallion-studded chicken meatballs and what makes them the star of the yakitori stage is the strange, wonderful mountain yam. Labeled in Asian markets as nagaimo, yamaimo, and Chinese yam, the ingredient has a slimy texture when grated that magically vanishes when mixed with ground chicken and grilled, leaving only a lovely, silky texture. That said, you can leave it out if you can’t find it and still enjoy these sauce-slicked meatballs.
MAKES ABOUT 18 MEATBALLS
Special Equipment
A grill (preferably charcoal)
6 bamboo skewers, soaked in water for 30 minutes
A food-safe brush
1 pound dark-meat ground chicken
¼ cup very finely chopped scallions (white and light green parts)
¼ cup finely grated peeled mountain yam (see Note)
2 tablespoons minced ginger
1 tablespoon sake (Japanese rice wine)
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 large egg yolks
Ground white pepper to taste
Vegetable oil for the grill grates
½ cup teriyaki sauce
PREPARE THE MEATBALLS
Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
Combine the chicken, scallions, yam, ginger, sake, salt, egg yolks, and white pepper in a small mixing bowl. Mix firmly with your hands until the ingredients are well distributed. The mixture will be much looser than that for the typical Western meatball.
One by one, form the meatballs and add them to the boiling water: spoon a generous tablespoon of the meatball mixture onto your palm, use the spoon to form it into an approximately 1½-inch ball, and carefully spoon it into the water. Cook until the meatballs are cooked through (they’ll float to the surface and be firm to the touch), 6 to 8 minutes, using a slotted spoon to transfer them as they’re done to a paper-towel-lined plate. You can grill them right away or let them cool and keep them covered in the fridge for up to 2 days. Let them come to room temperature before grilling.
GRILL THE MEATBALLS
Prepare the grill to cook over medium-high heat and lightly rub the grill grates with vegetable oil. Skewer the meatballs (about 3 per skewer) so that the bottom 2 inches of each skewer is empty and the tip is just barely sticking out from the top.
Generously brush the meatballs with teriyaki sauce and grill, turning over once and occasionally brushing on more sauce, until they’re lightly charred, about 3 minutes. Serve immediately.
Note: Some people may experience a mild allergic reaction when handling mountain yam, so wear gloves when you peel and grate the yam.
SAKE SHIOYAKI
SALT-GRILLED SALMON
Sometimes another language’s name for a dish makes it sound especially exotic and exciting. Take crudités for example. Much more appealing than “raw vegetables,” right? Shioyaki, too, sounds exotic and special, and the dish certainly tastes extraordinary—crisp-skinned and flavor-packed. What could be the secret? Well, it’s basically fish, seasoned with salt, and broiled. That’s it!
The magic is in the details. Buy the best salmon you can lay your hands on (wild salmon delivers great flavor and texture) and ask your fishmonger (or beg, if you have to) for center-cut fillets with a strip of fatty belly attached. Then salt the fish an hour before you plan to cook, so the salt has a chance to penetrate the fish, not just season the exterior. Leftovers make a great filling for onigiri (rice balls, ), if you can leave fish this good uneaten.
SERVES 4
1½ pounds skin-on center-cut salmon fillet, cut crosswise into 4 equal portions
2 tablespoons kosher salt
A drizzle of vegetable oil
Sprinkle the salt all over the fish. Let the fish sit uncovered in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Rinse off the salt and pat the fish dry.
Preheat the broiler and position the oven rack about 4 inches from the heat source. Drizzle a little vegetable oil on a baking sheet and rub to coat it with a very thin layer.
Arrange the fillets skin side down on the baking sheet, leaving some space between each one.
Broil, rotating the sheet once, until the fish is lightly browned and just cooked through, 4 to 6 minutes. Serve immediately.
MORIMOTO MAGIC TRICK: PROFESSIONAL COOKS IN JAPAN USE THIS NEAT TECHNIQUE CALLED SAKAJIO TO TONE DOWN A FISH’S, WELL, FISHINESS. TRY IT: BEFORE YOU START THIS RECIPE, STIR TOGETHER ¼ CUP PLUS 2 TABLESPOONS SAKE (JAPANESE RICE WINE) AND ½ TEASPOON KOSHER SALT IN A MEDIUM BOWL UNTIL THE SALT DISSOLVES. ONE BY ONE, ADD THE FISH FILLETS TO THE MIXTURE AND TAKE ABOUT 15 SECONDS OR SO TO TOSS THEM IN THE MIXTURE. PAT THE FILLETS DRY, PROCEED WITH THE RECIPE, AND MARVEL WHEN THE SALMON TASTES EVEN MORE LIKE, WELL, SALMON.
SAKANA NO MISOYAKI
GRILLED MISO-MARINATED FISH
Four ingredients. That’s all it takes to re-create the famous flavors of miso-marinated black cod. Long ago, when I worked for Nobu Matsuhisa, I saw what is essentially a humble staple of Japanese grandmothers become an American sensation worth big bucks. Little did diners know, the dish is incredibly easy to make at home. Miso joins forces with sugar, sake, and mirin to infuse fish with unforgettable sweet-salty flavor, whether you’re lucky enough to find buttery black cod or not. The marinade is so good that my recipe gives you three times the amount you need to make this dish, so in the weeks to come, you can use it to upgrade chicken and steak too.
SERVES 4
1 cup shiro (white) miso
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons sake (Japanese rice wine)
2 tablespoons mirin (sweet rice wine)
Four 4-ounce skin-on fatty white-fleshed fish fillets (½ to 1 inch th